breaking news out of afghanistan tonight as the u.s. military tries to quietly mop up the mess it created the name of the u.s. soldier being charged with the massacre of sixteen civilians has finally emerged and we'll bring you the latest developments this case. this is somebody who thought god you know are beautiful so i don't get the full force but you know what some of them are probably. still mostly and saying they are the occupy wall street movement is crossing the six month march first it was their motives that were unknown and now it's their results but for many at occupy d.c. and beyond this isn't a sprint it's

a marathon and one that's just getting started. you wouldn't socialism. noise. is really so she's news did you learn social. not exactly turns out many americans actually have no idea what socialism is and yet it equates to a dirty word in american politics what if i told you that most of the young people in america actually support it and we'll hash it all out. good evening it's friday march sixteenth eight pm in washington d.c. my name is christine for you watching our t.v. . following breaking news this hour the name of the man who allegedly confessed to going on a shooting spree in afghanistan is staff sergeant robert bales he's the thirty eight year old u.s. army soldier who officials say left his base last weekend walked more than

a mile and shot and killed sixteen afghan civilians most of them children and two villages in the punjab we just heard so the khandahar province according to u.s. military officials that bales a father of two children himself acted alone a rogue soldier on a massacre but the story told by. the villagers themselves is much different with something there were several small soldiers involved in the killing and afghan parliamentary investigation team has implicated as many as twenty u.s. troops so in this week what have the implications been and how will this impact the relationship between the u.s. and afghanistan i spoke a short time ago with a former u.s. marine who is also a current argued longer for our farsi they told our so i can tell you that i've been the last few days i've been investigating this are going on the phone with people inside of afghanistan e-mailing except for a. firsthand account they've been telling me that it's very problematic the soldiers that are that were there trying to do the hearts and minds campaign have

been hampered they are not allowed to go back outside the bases were previously were just a few weeks ago combat operations in these communities have largely stopped and overall what we've seen that this single event has set the united states back months if not years specifically in the south in the it has a devastating effect on the so thus far and it does not look like the united states is willing to try to fix it because well if the damage is already been done and there's no way to repair the kind of. huge cost that this has this event. what about this assertion jake that it was more than just one person involved from what i understand the villagers have even been shown surveillance video and yet they refuse to believe some even saying they saw otherwise how does this investigation play out do you think. you know i'm not really skeptical about the afghan parliamentary investigation because the u.s.

has these huge satellite imagery balloons that are you know you know maybe one hundred yards in the air above all of these major checkpoints and there was one in fact where this is where this event took place we have extensive video of what occurred and it's more than likely that it was just a single act or any number you know when you go on for combat tours as a soldier then you're very skilled you can mean you can kill an awful lot of people and you know we saw major nidal hassan just back stateside with a pistol kill a bunch of people i think more than that so it's unlikely there's more however i think what the what we see from the afghan side is this outrage this investigation isn't the real life it's the exemplary model of outrage by the afghans and again the damage here is so great that the taliban the peace talks we have they've stopped the taliban have totally stopped talking with which means that whatever you know political goals we have in the south in the east have now been.

there have been destroyed i mean the information war has begun and the taliban are eating our lunch it's very bad let's talk real quick quickly about this investigation this incident itself from one of the suspects main we're starting to learn a little more about hand and this morning on the scene today so had his attorney on i want to play a little bit about what he had to say. i think this case is more political than legal and i'm used to legal things and not the little things so i think there will be an effort to try to paint him as a room soldier rather than focus on we treating our g.i.'s in general and whether we should be over there to begin with so it seems to me that his lawyer is saying first of all he's worried his client is going to be made into a scapegoat and almost wants to put the war on trial instead of the suspect here.

well i mean i tell you i think that that's very the war should be what's the suspect not the soldier the soldier if you turn himself in he admitted to it the way we know. the real indictment here is about the mainstream media ok i mean our team did a great job of highlighting a lot of the problems of current afghanistan that a lot of the other mainstream media had and in this case with this soldier the mainstream media there's just one day story we haven't heard a thing about it is complete negligence on the mainstream media. part by not discussing the major problems the major cries of the afghan leader cries of the soldiers don't want to be there and i think overall what we're going to see in the near future in the twenty thirty especially the next election cycle afghanistan is going to be continue to be ignored by the mainstream media and by the american public and it needs to change the situation for the c.n.n. document b.c. they need to start covering this accurately and get into the trenches and find out what the real what really is going on here jake let me ask you we did touch upon

this a little bit on monday now we know the answer that in fact there's absolutely no way that the suspects will be tried in afghanistan. by the afghan people we knew that that probably wouldn't happen now we know for sure but that's what i think that they wanted top officials that you know what he needs to be tried by our legal system here. what do you think i mean just for the sake of conversation what do you think would happen do you think that would have appeased the afghan people had the u.s. government and military turned this guy over to them. yeah no i mean it's a great question though it would never be would be made things better the current president karzai has had a long history of overreacting to the smallest of things and under reacting to you know bite for haps his brother who's been you know the world's largest cherilyn dealer you know he's

a part of the afghan government so president karzai and much of the afghan government corruption. wise not to give they're still the soldier over there. but i think that overall if the government reform doesn't burn the afghan parliament you know we're going to lose we're going to see something good you know something making and using all the taliban you know take over sooner or later i think to what you say about the information war important when i have a feeling she will be learning a lot more about this suspect in the coming days appreciate you having you on r.t. blogger and former u.s. marine jacob they're separating us from the u.k. well tomorrow marks the six month anniversary of the day occupy wall street all started and for six months we've been bringing you stories from the front lines from new york to washington d.c. to oakland california and more this is a movement that has evolved greatly and has shed light on issues like wealth inequality in america failures in the financial system and police brutality but we

also want to have a better understanding of the occupy movement itself so for the last several months we've been hanging out with one guy the same guy twenty four year old twenty four year old washington d.c. resident joel northam i knew right away when i met him that his passion would fuel his patients he was in this for the long haul and it turned out i was right six months on jol is still committed to the cause of change and still very active in the occupy movement to spike and challenges over the last six months much of which he spent living in macpherson square are here in washington here's a look at the movement through his eyes. never gets a free will but so maybe it's a global the say ship before examination a soul fly in need to get saturation we first met joel northam in the early stages of the occupy wall street movement i've been out here since i think october second i'm angry a little bit at just the whole. government corruption the falsely price per se but really incestuous relationship that they got out of their day. like woodstock which

responsible for multiple atrocity wall why a former children's mental health counsellor jools position was cut and he was left without a job and instead found a place and a person here still this is a come up a full time job you know i mean a full time job you don't get paid for course but you know if you love something enough that's kind of. you know you just stay on the hospital and stay he did. the air pool in. the rain the snow freezing temperatures again. the school settlement that we just wrecked did to protect us from the outside conditions and those conditions not all thanks to mother nature every night or something and there's always some fights there's always a some kind of drama happening there's a lot of theft a lot i swear the police i've been telling my jockeys and drug dealers they want to give us what they hang out but it's very. big fierce and square one of the longest

lasting occupations ended up becoming a microcosm of society itself with similar issues from cleanliness to crime. still joel and many others here remain undeterred or today it is january the third two thousand and twelve. year the revolution of the let's call it. it is close to. maybe twenty six twenty seven degrees outside but it wasn't the cold but these a vision notices that were posted on the occupiers tents setting off a firestorm of both anger and support and the construction of this tent of dreams. most people did end up leaving joel included i guess the thing that maybe stopped libya was the way. that was i mean i was i mean they had infrared helicopters flying around at night you know having like the wall formal vision on the tents to

make sure the people are in the tent sleeping but even police crackdowns have not meant the end of occupy wall street and this does make your sense where today nearly six months after the occupy wall street movement began a few tense remain but it's largely symbolic though and the others say the occupation aspect of this movement is simply one chapter in a longer story many more still yet to be written but we did the dirty work for them the desire for radical change and a new found belief that it can actually be achieved is strong enough not to be subdued in the brought me here was that feeling that something was incredibly was with society in the system in general and everything that we you know are you know should be naturally against that human beings and. i think i found that there is actually something that we can do about it in washington christine frizz now r.t. occupy wall street is of course a leaderless movement but it's one that has nonetheless brought about some leaders

people who have stood out and have spoken out to help get some of those central messages across and joel was one of them and another is just they were graca and active participant in new york he was in our new york studios earlier today and i asked him to give us his take on the last six months. it's a big fight but it's one that needs to take place i mean i know several different object by wall street protests in different locations as passed resolutions against the citizens united decision by the supreme court to allow money equal speech and to let the big corporate interests totally have outsized influence over elections this is basic nonsense american principles just the principles of democracy itself one man equals one vote if one dollar equals one vote the people who don't have dollars will be voiceless and that's just not a democracy so to me the challenges are huge but the horten thing is people are willing to take this fight of and despite the police violence against occupy despite the press smears against us we still go on if anything it speaks to the

fact that my generation wants this change and we're not going to take no for an answer and what do you think of band innermost a fact of aspects that the movement in terms of getting its message desires across . you know what happens when you have an entire generation of educated people who can't find work they have to find something to do with those energies i think some of the actions we've taken to occupy foreclosed homes are tremendous it really points out with a promise the fact that there are so many homeless people in america and yet we have houses vacant because we have a financial system that literally makes of things as they go along these foreclosure fraud scandal that the obama administration just settled it was twenty five billion dollars twenty five billion dollars worth of fraud that hurts the marketplace to see that regulations hurt the marketplace more than the fraud does is absolutely absurd but when it comes down to it there are a lot of different tactics to take the government has done what they can to suppress freedom of assembly i mean i think a lot of people participate in article i didn't realize that we don't actually have

these freedoms you know you try to use a freedom assembly in the eurozone it's free as long as you don't try to do it either way about it the fights against us are huge but the fact that we cannot ignore this fate is what's very important one of the your whole generation of people jumping out into the streets to do some bad is really inspiring and i think it's not just sort of the observations that you and others have made about society about the system but i guess i i wanted to talk more specifically about art i was reading about the movement six months in failures and successes in terms of communicating you know sort of the once they you have and the changes that you want . well it's difficult because there are so many different voices out there i think the hardest part of what we're doing is coming to a big consensus to see these are the things that we need to face first before anything else and i think one of the good things about having this grassroots movement is just having that conversation in the first place and taking the nonsense conversations and pushing them aside someone up in occupy boston put

together a study asking people within our movement which issues matter to them most and it turns out the deficit is at the bottom of that list national debt bottom of the list of austerity budget cuts part of the list the things people want to talk about is chops protecting consumers creating a sustainable economy that works for one hundred percent of us not just the wealthiest one percent and it's not easy but it's important i think there are some things personally i'm not speaking for anybody other than myself that i don't like with an occupying movement i think the blank the police thing is a bad move if i were an occupier and i saw that i don't think i would respond to it positively i think there are some brilliant things that we do you know recently they had a protest against bank of america some protesters brought their living room furniture in so that they could set up and told him oh you store home so we're going to live here from now on i think that stuff is brilliant i would love to see more of it so i would say that we have are growing pains we don't have millionaire lobbyist or advisers and i wouldn't want them if they if they were offered it's

a lot of hard work and i think it speaks to the fact that even with high unemployment people are willing to do the work but we demand decent pay too it's really interesting to us because you are of course one of dozens of occupiers that we've spoken to here on r.t. and most of you say often refer to citizens united as you did it's just a moment ago and that case sort of being a profound wake up call in terms of the problems with the system with democracy in this country i hear we are it's twenty twelve it's an election year we're in the process of what's been a pretty long g.o.p. presidential primary and of course in november will the election. anything that you've seen already so far in this election cycle that either trouble trouble you or given you hope. there's a little on both sides there's been a couple bills offered there's one bill called the occupied amendment which is a constitutional amendment to reverse citizens united now that one i love there's some really really bad stuff too though many republican party officials and states

that are controlled by the republican party have been pushing a slew of bills to reverse voting rights to make it harder for minorities elderly people college students to vote it's basically jim crow two point zero and the idea that the guys who scream about economic freedom we want economic freedom but they want to make it harder for you to vote to me i find it entirely un-american and very disturbing to me i think if anything america has always benefited when we've expanded rates when we expanded rights to african-americans and then to women and then the civil rights movement every thirty years we have to expand our rates a little more and that these are coming back to that so the idea that some people are out there fighting to make sure regulation doesn't suppress commerce and at the same time they're making it harder for people to have raids an easier for corporations that writes i think history will frown on that years from now how they're looking there in new york i mean obviously zuccotti park was sort of the initial center of the occupation is it still pretty common to walk around and see my wall street in new york. bunch of our friends were just as you call you today

holding i think it was training sessions for a number of issues people are still out there walking down by wall street as the weather gets nicer we're going to have more general action you know i've heard the phrase from the military the beatings will continue until morale improves i kind of feel the same way about the economy the reality is if we were to go away these problems would still exist and if we get on the street and try to do something we can create the political pressure necessary to get these laws changed that we can put in back let's bring back the fire wall separating commercial venture investment banks taking back all of the basic protections that consumers had in the economy that protected a larger economy all together so there are some good things within the political sphere i like to see the fact that we're talking about a millionaire's tax a warren buffett rule i think is a good idea a return to the vote we're going to the volcker rule would be a good idea at the same time there's a war on women we can obviously see that they would love to. the people who don't

want to have this conversation about fixing the economy the people who like the way it is broken as it is they don't want to talk about this they would rather talk about anything else our job as activists to push the envelope thirdly it's been a very busy six months for you. activist and writer for the daily coast all right let's first years now to that debate that seems to be everywhere to cover or not to cover contraception and health care plans and so on largely political and you don't have to look far to hear what politicians and pundits and radio hosts are think for now what regular people think or hard for that's what the president got that talk to people in new york city to get their take. do you believe contraception coverage should be mandated by a government this week let's talk about that being that contraception is. something that will protect kids from outing unborn or unwanted trial and wanted

pregnancies toothpaste prevent k. should that be covered to oh that's a good question i don't think i posed are the same category why what's the difference between a contraceptive well with a diet that's more of a health concern in terms of your own nutritional. your own your own personal nutrition right and so what the difference of contraception that your own lifestyle choice to have i'm protected sex well some people like it better than others and i do believe in the separation of the state and religion do you think it's a religious issue only no i think it's a women's right issue as well but i don't think you can have a government mandate that providing something that somebody may not believe in so i do believe there is a separation i think it's women's rights i mean i think that the government should subsidize these kind of birth control to women but is it women's right or women's

choice because they don't and there are other ways to not get pregnant yet but is viagra is also included and the government is paying for it so to do two wrongs make a right. but do two wrongs make a right so why do you think people see it as a health care issue. i think people get health care i think people get a lot of things mixed up in the politics of everything. you know i believe. that choice has to be at home and that's where that lies and i don't think the government should mandate that level of intimacy well i don't know why people think so but i think there are much more. important for problems and important issues that the government should pay more attention to allay fears or people his abilities or people who are actually need us money and need that help instead of putting the money in the birth control i don't i'm still stuck on government mandated i do believe ever that birth control should be available to us we're paying high parties insurance. i am for insurance premiums and if that is the kind

of health care that i need i think it should be available to me whether a government has to mandate that or not i don't know the bottom line is any kind of pharmaceutical contraception is a special lifestyle choice so let's look up any government considers that for treating contraception as a health care concern. all right so as you can see in the report there are quite a few people who are confused about what the debate actually is so let's put up some quick facts originally the white house put forth a mandy requiring insurance plans to cover birth control for employees even if those employers were religious in nature catholic colleges for example and which students would also need to be covered then president obama announced last month that religiously affiliated employers would not have to cover that contraception but instead insurers would do so now the gray area has to do with self insured

employers who directly cover employees health care costs out of their own funds that's still a little up in the air but we do want to pull this one out of just the contraception story and talk about what else this debate has sparked conversations ranging from the separation of church and state women's rights governments rights prostitution and even g.o.p. candidate rick santorum promising to initiate a war on pornography if elected with all this once again juxtaposition between rhetoric and reality especially when it comes to preaching morality because when you do a little digging you realize that in places where people are using one hand to shake their finger and preach about right and wrong or using the other hand to well do other things take a look at this map this shows states where the highest number of people who are subscribing to adult membership websites according to a two thousand one study eight out of ten of those states including mississippi arkansas west virginia went to john mccain in the two thousand and eight election

so it seems the harsher the rules the higher the interest i spoke about this just a bit ago with megan carpentier executive editor of the raw story. well i think americans have a love affair porn it's a multibillion dollar industry in this country so when you look at pornography people are using it whether they're paying for it or whether they're finding it on websites it's. in many cases and that's part of rick santorum problem is that he doesn't think that he doesn't think that people should be using it he thinks that's contributing to the client families in this country but what do you think it says i mean this map that we showed that shows these red states you know eight out of ten of the top. states where people are members of these adult web sites are you know traditionally conservative states what do you think it says that they're the people that are you know consuming this program i think it's really interesting because when you look at porn consumers in many cases it's seventy five percent and eighty

percent men and obviously rick santorum mitt romney you the folks in this in this debate are actually losing votes among women so to some degree it almost seems like this is an effort designed to gain back women's voters and women's trust after this debate on contraception where they're coming out and calling women sort of terrible names for using quite a few terrible names there's a new book out or not sure if you've heard of it it's called fifty shades of grey and it's basically a very graphic novel about a young woman a virgin who becomes sexually submissive to a man it's erotic some call it obscene and guess what it's reached the top of the new york times bestseller list at least for e-books so i'm wondering what you think megan i mean will evokes make it so that you know people will now be able to return to their sexual nature they can they can read books they could be reading about anything home design gardening according to the person sitting next to them or they're actually writing about sex well i think when you look at it when you look

at erotic books everything from lady chatterley's lover to ana easton in people have been consuming erotic. books for generations whether they could be seen or not if you could always put the paper cover over it or beneath another book which is actually what i did when i was a teenager. very interesting why did you think you had to hide it well i was a very very just reader and i was reading anything my parents would or i could put my hands on but my parents didn't necessarily agree with that so i would hide one book behind another so i actually would read something behind something like a tree grows in brooklyn and that was making carpentier executive editor for raw story all right and one more thing i wanted to show you something you may have already seen it floating around the internet today but it kind of sums it all up take a look at the. little sign that says i see so if i don't have sex with you i'm a prude b word if i use the pill i'm a slut if i get pregnant i'm an idiot and if i choose abortion i'm stating. the

thing kind of a funny little thing to think about what's going to do for us but don't forget to tune in to our team next week we have got a brand new line up it was the trailblazer by religious tired ears who pushed westward looking for freedom of religion and now someone else is using the midwest as a frontier of sorts that's right deep in the deserts of utah the national security agency is developing the nation's largest most expensive cybersecurity project some call it a spy center next we'll tell you next week we'll tell you what they're really trying to hide and how they're keeping it a secret plus some say it's fear others say americans are trigger happy no matter the reasoning the world's most heavily armed country just can't seem to get enough ammunition i'll show you how the second amendment is being driven to extremes. and the mainstream media might know how to break stories first but can you count on them to ask the critical questions so are american journalists

a self censoring to get the scoop old story that story and of course those are just a few of the stories we'll be bringing you next week along with much more news and in-depth interviews so keep it tuned right here on our t.v. but for now that will do it however if you want to see more of the stories we covered go to our team dot com slash usa and there are of course you'll find stories we don't always have time to get to on air today our web seem worth a story about two u.s. senators who are urging the federal government to give the american public evidence of how the patriot act has been interpreted since it was signed into law in two thousand and one and the truth is not pretty it's an interesting read so you should check it out and of course if you missed any part of this show or any others before don't worry post all of our interviews online in full so that our you tube page that address you got columns last r.t. america and don't forget to leave me some comments and stories suggestions better.